Quote: It's very common that one partner thinks the marriage was fine, in fact, just like any other person's marriage with its normal ups and downs, but that overall it was good, and it may very well have been just like that in the eyes of most any observer, while their partner thinks quite otherwise but doesn't say so. People don't just wake up one day and decide to have an affair, there's typically some period of time where grave dissatisfaction has set in and gotten to the point where they became vulnerable.
I'm going to argue for the quite different point of view. In one of the books on infidelity I've read, the author who is a therapist and worked many years with just that - the infidelity ans its consequenses, - says that he came to a rather paradoxical conclusion that it's common for people to switch places of cause and effect. In most cases however, the sequence was not a bad marriage leading one S to seek another person and commit an affair which signals that there's no hope and R was domed anyway; but rather, that the marriage was at least comfortable if not good, but then an affair started (especially if it starts out innocently), which caused the marriage to collapse directly or indirectly (when one S is emotionally involved someplace else, it's bound to impact R), then the one having the affair sees the damage, concludes that M was terrible from the start and flees the wreckage.
Affairs can and do start in good marriages. Simply because they are often precipitated by internal conflict/turmoil; and let me tell you that it's not the spouse's function to complete the other and solve the conflict. It's very tempting to think that by pressing a button old life can dissipate and new life appear. Guess how well it works though. Normally morphine can and will make you feel much better, but unfortunately there's no evidence that it cures appendicitis.
To get through the darkest period of the night, act as if it is already morning.
The Talmud
